An all-instrumental album by Willie Nelson and his road band? Sounds strange — but it's just traditionalism. When Nelson was just another Nashville songwriter in the early 1960s, instrumental country albums were not uncommon, done by studio hotshots like Chet Atkins or sometimes crack backup bands like Buck Owens' Buckaroos. The hippest collections offered country-toned versions of show tunes and jazz standards, just like Night and Day does. Given that Nelson and his seasoned gang are the masters of the offhand seduction, the workouts here glow with the friendly feel of a deeply coherent band. On "Vous et Moi," the first track, the instruments slide in behind the leader's guitar like a stream finding its way downhill. With Mickey Raphael taking particularly voicelike harmonica solos, a bittersweet Spanish tinge is everywhere, from the title tune to the Nelson original "Bandera." Although Night and Day arrives without the usual Saint Willie fanfare, if there's any justice, it won't become another of his lost low-key triumphs, like the venerable Face of a Fighter or the recent Just One Love.

“Let My Love Open the Door”

A peppy, hopeful love song, "Let My Love Open the Door" became a U. S. Top Ten hit for Pete Townshend in 1980, anchored by the kind of repeating synthesizer figures that he'd used in some of the Who's recordings in the previous decade. Although Townshend brushed the song off as "just a ditty" in Rolling Stone shortly after its release, in 1996 he revealed it was about love of the holiest sort. "It's supposed to be about the power of God's love," he remarked. "That when you're in difficulty, whether it's major or minor, God's love is always there for you."